People Legitimately Want An Acoustic Sevendust Album

26 November 2013 | 3:39 pm | Dan Condon

As well as a new LP from The Presidents Of The USA, and to be part of a Unified Scene.

Name: Sevendust
Project: Acoustic album
Current Status: 1373 pledges, 97% of unknown goal achieved, 126 days remaining

In case you were wondering, and you should have been, yes there are people who actively want an acoustic Sevendust album and are willing to part with a fairly sizeable sum of money to ensure that it happens.

They might not quite have the same power over here they once had, but this alt-metal band are still commanding decent record sales in the US – this year's Black Out the Sun went top 20 on the Billboard charts – and have a passionate fan base. Those fans have responded immediately when word of the group putting together an acoustic album came out, pledging enormous amounts of cash to ensure the record is fully funded and in their hands ASAP.

The band were flogging off guitars, acoustic house shows, studio hangs, dinner with the band, phone calls, liner notes and merch and plenty of it is still available at the band's PledgeMusic page.

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Name: The Hold Steady
Project: Unified Scene
Current Status: 1172 pledges, 151% of unknown goal achieved, 67 days remaining.

One of the great rock bands of our time, The Hold Steady, are rallying the troops again as they lead up to the release of a new EP and a new album, but doing it in such a way that will hopefully see their fans become even closer to the band than they are now.

The Unified Scene was a kind of a fan club that some punters started around the band and one that the band had a great appreciation of. They've decided to formalise it a little more in order to give the true fans a chance to get updates from the band, as well as opportunities for cool shit like merchandise and chances to hang out with the band.

While the main thing they are flogging is a covers EP that'll be out next year, they're offering heaps of cool shit like a chance to go for a jog with frontman Craig Finn, to get a haircut from guitarist Tad Kubler, a trip to a sporting event with the band or have bassist Galen Polivka be the bartender at your next party.

The campaign hit 100 percent within hours, but is still open for a long time. The band are donating a portion of all the money raised to the K+L Guardian Foundation, which will go to the children of sadly deceased Hold Steady uber-fan Jersey Mike, who died suddenly last year.

Dig deep. After all, we are all The Hold Steady.

Name: The Presidents Of The United States Of America
Project: New album
Current Status: 722 pledges, 76% of unknown goal achieved, 60 days remaining

It has been 21 years since PUSA first started and they have a brand new record set for release this February, even though they reckon they had no intention of making one. The songs have been pouring out, they've been recording them and now they just need a little financial kick to get the record out there.

They are selling off hand-written lyric sheets for a whole heap of their songs – Lump, Peaches, Mach 5, Volcano – as well a scored version of Volcano written by The Captain of Captain and Tennille fame. There are all manner of incredible rare items from the vault of PUSA, so if you're a megafan with a couple of hundred bucks you can seriously own a very cool piece of this band's history. We're eyeing off their Grammy nomination certificate for $300…

If you want to actually play like PUSA, then they're selling two Guitbasses and two Basitars along with Skype lessons for a very reasonable amount of money. You could be the next President!

Also in crowdfunding this week:

You can literally crowdfund your life if you want. It's like an IPO where you get investors to give you money and then you give them dividends of your future income. It's scary, weird and could very well become incredibly popular – at least for a little while. This NY Mag piece goes into it a little bit, discussing the concept with someone who is onboard and a couple of companies offering the service.

Martin Scorsese and Steve James (Hoop Dreams) are crowdfunding a new documentary that is being made on renowned and sadly departed film critic Roger Ebert. They want to hit $150,000 by the time the campaign closes (25 days' time) and if enough cinephiles get wind of the project they should be able to do it fairly easily, as there are plenty of incentives to throw in a few bucks.